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October 21, 2006

Bush Aides Called Evangelicals 'Nuts'

A new book by David Kuo, a former official of Bush's faith-based office, reports that top Bush aides routinely made fun of the Christian extremists who helped to elect the administration. The book is called Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, and it sounds like it might be worth a read. According to CommonDreams, the book "...says that President Bush's top political advisors privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as 'nuts' and 'goofy' while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections."

The implications of these allegations are potentially important. Obviously, they may take a toll on current efforts by the Rove propaganda machine to muster support for Republican candidates from conservative Christians. However, they also cast doubt on the commonly held view that Bush's cronies are true believers. Perhaps they are smarter than that and are simply manipulating Christian voters. After all, believing something without supportive evidence does suggest that one might believe other sorts of nonsense for which there is no evidence (i.e., that Republicanism is good for America). Finally, the book appears to expose to GOP's strategic use of conservative Christians. It sounds like all the faith-based programs may have been little more than a carrot for the Christian extremists.

Naturally, the Republican spin machine is firing up to oppose Kuo's allegations. Kuo has already been on 60 Minutes and The Colbert Report, so this is generating some publicity. I suspect Fox "News" will find some way to blame Bill Clinton for this if they haven't already.